Biography of Dr. S. M. Lowry

DR. S. M. LOWRY was one of a large family of children born to Squire M. and Sarah L. (Cherry) Lowry. His grandfather was of Irish origin, and was born at sea. He became a resident of North Carolina, and subsequently moved to Todd County, Ky., at a very early day, where Squire M. was born. The latter died in 1853, leaving a wife and nine children, of whom but five now survive. Mrs. Lowry was a native of North Carolina, but was reared in Tennessee. She died in 1880, at the age of seventy-six years. Dr. Lowry was reared upon the farm, but was afforded excellent educational, advantages. He prepared for college at the school of James Ross, in Montgomery County, Tenn., and then attended Bethel College at Russellville; Ky., where he completed the course in 1859. He began reading medicine the same year, entering the Jefferson Medical College at Philadelphia, Penn., and graduating in the spring of 1861. He began the practice of his profession at Elkton and continued it for ten years, when he abandoned it to engage in farming. For the past twenty years he has been extensively engaged in the purchase and sale of tobacco in the county, in which he has been eminently successful. As authorized agent for the Elephant Warehouse of Clarksville, Tenn., he has been prominently identified with the tobacco interests of this and adjacent counties, putting up from 200 to 500 hogsheads of the staple article annually, the prizing being done at various points. The Doctor is a man of public spirit and generosity, his substantial and unqualified support to all enterprises calculated for the lasting good of the people being forthcoming on all occasions. He is an active member of the Baptist Church, with which he has been connected since fourteen years of age, and of which his mother was a member for forty years. He is also a member of the A. F. & A. M. and K. of H. fraternities. In 1867 he was married to Miss Lucy G. McLean, daughter of Hon. Finis E. and Lucy A. (Gray) McLean. She was born in 1850, at Elkton.

Mr. and Mrs. Lowry have one son, Thornton Henry, born in 1871. John Henry Lowry (deceased) was born in Todd County, Ky., October 12, 1831, the second child born to Squire M. and Sarah L. (Cherry) Lowry. He was a bright boy, and as early as possible he was placed in school. Laying the foundation of his education at the academies of Allensville and Elkton, he subsequently entered the Cumberland University at Princeton, Ky., and was graduated from the literary course by this institution in 1853. He then took charge of his father’s interest in a lumber business on the Cumberland River, but served in this capacity only a year or two. In 1856, he entered the Law Department of the university at Lebanon, where he completed his legal studies. He returned to Elkton and began practice, and soon achieved a wide-spread reputation. In August, 1858, he was elected County Attorney on the Know-Nothing ticket, serving four,. years, and was then elected to the Lower House of the Legislature on the Union ticket. In 1864, he made a race for Congress against H. C. Grider, and was defeated by a bare majority. In 1866, he met with a seemingly slight accident while riding a horse, but only a few weeks afterward he was suddenly stricken with paralysis, and for ten years following, was obliged to wheel himself about in an invalid chair. This sudden and direful affliction, however, did not serve to abate his natural power and force as a speaker, and though so unfortunately handicapped, he still retained his leading position at the bar, and his practice during this period was the most lucrative of all his legal experience. In 1876, a slight accident rendered his partial paralysis complete, and his death, which soon followed, ended a career that had once promised to lead to the loftiest achievement. Mr. Lowry left a daughter, Hannah G., as his sole survivor; he had married in 1857 Miss Hannah Brown, a native of Lebanon, Tenn., and a niece of Gov. Neal S. Brown of that State; she died in 1864.